Clearly, whoever was responsible had not properly checked Mallaby’s background; even at that point, he could have been employed more productively.
Mallaby’s quality shone through, and in February 1941 he left the United Kingdom for destination unknown in the ranks of No. 8 Commando, part of the ‘Layforce’ special unit. Layforce was heading for Egypt, but to get there Mallaby and his comrades had to circumnavigate Africa, and they arrived only on 13 March 1941.
The following summer Mallaby fought against the Axis forces at Tobruk, but then contracted dysentery and was forced into a long convalescence. Keen to return to action, Mallaby returned to base after forging his medical clearance certificate. There he found that his unit had been dissolved, and realized that he was still not fully recovered. Having gathered his strength, his requests to enlist in the Special Air Service, Special Boat Service and Arab Legion were rejected.
Mallaby was promoted to corporal, but turned down the chance to become an officer and assume a leadership role. He wanted action, but his duties consisted of nothing more than dull stores work and the supervision of Italian prisoners engaged in building camps and latrines. And thus 1941 drew to a close.
Since his intimate knowledge of the Italian language and situation had not yet been evaluated, Mallaby himself put these to good use, amusing himself by putting the wind up any Tuscan prisoners, flaunting his perfect knowledge of their localities, not to mention their vernacular.
Eventually, the two predestined parties joined together. Mallaby (fortuitously or not, we shall never know) came into contact with Special Operations Executive (SOE) and was immediately recruited at its Cairo station as ‘Conducting NCO and Interpreter’. The date was 15 January 1942.
Dick Mallaby recalled this crucial moment in his personal diary in this way: ‘I was told that a mysterious organization called M.O.4 in Cairo wanted my assistance’.
The breakthrough moment had come.
This is an opportune moment to pause Mallaby’s story, and to provide the essential context on SOE and its missions in Italy and elsewhere during World War II.
2
Special Operations Executive
Success in war, like charity in religion, covers a multitude of sins.
Sir Charles Napier (1782–1853)
[The] secret history of a nation […] is often so much more intimate and interesting than its public chronicles.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
Special Operations Executive was a secret organization that was officially created on 19 July 1940. At its peak, it comprised c. 13,500 members, of whom 5,000 were operational agents. It should be recalled that at the time of its founding, Great Britain was the only European nation offering any resistance to the German and Italian armed forces.
In illustrating any aspect even indirectly connected with SOE, any categorical statement should be avoided, given the secrecy of the structure – its existence was only first officially acknowledged in the 1980s. Put very briefly, this secret organization was tasked with carrying out a wide range of activities such as sabotage, support for clandestine movements, terrorism, all prohibited by international conventions, wherever local circumstances would allow.1
Many SOE operations were carried out by single agents acting autonomously and independently, beyond the constraints of any military framework, but deprived of relevant protection. At the operational level, this constituted the most significant difference compared to the modus operandi of other special units, such as the Commandos.
It should be further clarified that the men and women of SOE did not operate like regular soldiers, nor did they have much in common with espionage and counterespionage operatives, even if SOE activities sometimes involved aspects of espionage.2
All those who worked for SOE were special agents, belonging to a special service. Their life expectancy on missions was statistically quantified in weeks, partly due to the fact that, according to international convention, execution was legitimized in the event of capture in enemy territory without uniform.
The structure of SOE was conceived by two senior politicians of the time: the Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Labour member Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare. Although from different camps and mutually unsympathetic, they pragmatically joined efforts to create this secret organization, the necessity of which was clear to them.
From a strictly administrative point of view, the foundation of SOE and even its naming were among the last executive acts of Neville Chamberlain.
Curiously, the principal stimulus in creating this secret organization was based on erroneous supposition. In the looming panic that followed the overwhelming initial German military successes, it was wrongly thought that one of the main reasons for these successes was the presence of unconventional units in these territories that favourably predisposed the local populations towards an invasion. It was therefore decided to create a structure that could coordinate guerrilla activities should Britain be invaded, and could also operate secretly in enemy territory and in countries occupied by Axis forces.3
However, both of these initial purposes were soon left behind. SOE’s fundamental activities came to comprise the following: infiltration into enemy-occupied areas; the organization of and support for clandestine guerrilla movements and sabotage; the training of committed volunteers ready and able to destroy roads, railways and strategic infrastructure; the distribution of weapons, ammunition and explosives, as well as communications equipment; and the development of unconventional strategy aimed at supporting military action.
In more official terms, SOE was to coordinate all kinds of action against the enemy (initially in Europe and later, after Pearl Harbor, around the globe), whilst also supporting local resistance movements.
At the time of its operation, SOE was also known as ‘Churchill’s Secret Army’, the ‘Baker Street Irregulars’ or the ‘Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’. Churchill used to call SOE’s activities ‘naughty deeds’.
Some of the details of SOE’s particular administrative structure are noteworthy: from the outset, it was financed by secret funds, it was free from parliamentary and military control, and as officially it did not exist, it was legitimate to deny its existence.
SOE resulted from the union of three pre-existing departments, created in the immediacy of (and fear provoked by) the outbreak of war: the department known as CS (after its head, Sir Campbell Stuart) or EH (after its Electra House location) at the Foreign Office; Section D of the Secret Intelligence Service – SIS, also known as MI6 – tasked with propaganda and counter-propaganda, sabotage and unconventional warfare; and General Staff (Research) – GS(R), subsequently retitled Military Intelligence Research or MI(R) – at the War Office.
The activities of these three departments had been very limited, not least because of poor leadership and the scarcity of resources, and often overlapped; thus it was decided to merge them into a single entity.
With great pragmatism, and without qualms, one of the models adopted for operational use was that developed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during its struggle for independence against the British. Moreover, Scotland Yard’s reports on the most successful burglars’ tricks of the trade, and the guerrilla manuals used by communist fighters in the Spanish Civil War, were also carefully studied.
Another somewhat surprising fact relates to the non-military backgrounds of the chiefs who led SOE (codenamed CD). The first was Frank Nelson, who had a commercial and diplomatic background. He was followed in 1942 by Charles Hambro, head of the eponymous influential bank. The last head was a soldier at least, Colin Gubbins. He was appointed in September 1943, at the height of three key events in World War II and SOE’s history: the Italian surrender, the Allied Salerno landings and Dick Mallaby’s first mission. Gubbins remained in post until the winding-up of SOE. He at least could offer a background more specifically related to his duties, being a polyglot who had written several manuals on guerrilla warfare and had
previously managed and taken part in covert special operations, which varied in nature.
In accordance with the service’s style, the heads of SOE chose their personnel with great pragmatism, not favouring any particular category. Failure to supply a blank criminal record did not constitute an impediment to entry; on the contrary, in relation to specific missions and sectors, especially deception and counterfeit work, such experience was even considered more relevant than an international background.4
The executive also turned a blind eye to discriminations of the time: homosexuals, communists and even anti-British nationalists were recruited without qualm. A significant percentage of its personnel also came from the ranks of exiles and prisoners of war from countries invaded by Axis forces.
All this helps us see that SOE agents generally operated beyond the limits of international convention, which also meant that they could be condemned to death and liquidated straight after capture.
In fact, the international agreement governing war (the 1929 Geneva Convention, a development of the 1907 Hague Convention) allowed a certain discretion with regard to the treatment of spies and saboteurs disguised in civilian clothes or friendly uniform, thus implicitly legitimizing their elimination. However, the 1907 Hague Convention also established that no agent, even if caught in the act of spying, could be punished without first being subjected to trial (Article 30).
The statistics of how many SOE agents were deliberately killed on active service are revealing: the total amounts to ‘only’ 850 (about 20 per cent), in 36 different countries, and in many cases death followed or resulted from torture.
Overall, despite the unorthodox recruitment parameters, this heterogeneous group of military personnel and civilians produced positive results, even if there were cases of infiltration by enemy counterintelligence elements, and of desertion too.
Infiltration was the nightmare scenario for any such organization – and the one that materialized in Italy, which affected Dick Mallaby’s first mission, remains quantitatively and qualitatively unsurpassed, and perhaps for this reason its details have come to light only in recent years. No such incidents were recorded on British soil, despite the presence of several dubious figures, and the fact that, for a year, among the SOE instructors was a certain Kim Philby.5
The nature of SOE’s activities and the ever-present competition between special units meant that its relationships with the other military and government bodies were neither idyllic nor constructive throughout the course of the war. One can thus state, without much difficulty, that SOE’s main enemies were (in order): the Foreign Office, the military leadership, and the other special units.
These difficult relationships would lead to the resignation of Charles Hambro, the head of SOE in September 1943, and even saw the continued existence of SOE as a separate organization threatened.
The original plan was that every special operation should receive preliminary Foreign Office approval, though this agency often favoured its own creation (i.e. SIS) to the detriment of SOE. However, on occasion SOE’s activities did provoke clashes with the exiled representatives of Axis-occupied countries due both to their lack of involvement and reprisals against their civilians. One such example is the 27 May 1942 attack on the governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and eminent SS member, Reinhard Heydrich. This is perhaps the most famous SOE operation, and was certainly the most prominent target in its history. Although it succeeded and Heydrich died on 4 June, it provoked violent and bloody German reprisals against the civilian population.6 Apart from the odd clash caused by reckless behaviour of some SOE agents (such as the ones operating in Hungary who hid large quantities of explosives in the cellars of the British diplomatic headquarters, without permission of course), the contrasts between SIS and SOE were chiefly visible in their differing modus agendi, notably during operational overlaps.
SIS favoured the acquisition of confidential information via carefully cultivated high-level personal contacts that was coherently developed across a long-term perspective. SOE, pragmatically and cynically, tended to provoke and use violence, sabotage and subversion, dealing (sometimes highly recklessly) with anyone who proved useful at that specific moment to its objectives (including communist groups, whose post-war aims were the antithesis to those of the British government).
SOE was commonly and typically branded in a dismissive and haughty manner as producing no real advantage in general terms in operations against the enemy.
Setting aside the prejudice and poor analysis, the above was a result not only of the restrictions of secrecy (even at the very highest level), but above all of the intangibility of the results of SOE operations (and thus, their contentiousness). The results of an aerial bombardment were immediately evident; those of an infiltration that lasted for months almost never were, compounded by the fact that they could rarely be disclosed. This secrecy was also almost total in the case of Dick Mallaby’s two missions, as we shall see.
One of SOE’s most undervalued contributions was its involvement in a wide range of covert propaganda activities, mainly delivered via the media, aimed at securing the United States’ entry into the war. The men and women of SOE were also tasked with nurturing the embryonic structures of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS).7
The training of SOE agents (who were usually grouped by nationality) was onerous and included – in addition to standard weapons training – sabotage, unarmed combat, survival and navigation techniques, silent killing, how to resist interrogation and torture (both physical and psychological), parachuting, radio-telegraphy, and the study of the specific nations in which operations were planned in order to achieve perfect cover.8 SOE instructors were also able to introduce innovative techniques, later widely adopted: for example, shooting from a kneeling position, with both hands on the pistol.
The ‘graduation test’ at the conclusion of training courses held in Great Britain is worthy of note. Each agent was instructed to carry out a particular crime, with the aid of identified accomplices, in areas where the police had been alerted. Naturally, those who ‘graduated’ were not subject to prosecution; but the principal aim was to evaluate the creativity and self-discipline of the agent when faced with sudden and unexpected danger.
As has often happened, the seeds planted rapidly by special services to serve their immediate tactical needs – in some cases, in particular times and locations – have borne poisonous fruit. According to many experts and analysts, the terrorist guerrilla warfare put into practice and instigated by SOE in World War II served as a model for many subsequent terrorist formations, and not only in the immediate post-war period.
According to the forthright, non-PC opinion of the historian John Keegan, quoted in The Irish War by Tony Geraghty:
We must recognise that our response to the scourge of terrorism is compromised by what we did through SOE. The justification … that we had no other means of striking back at the enemy … is exactly the argument used by the Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhoff gang, the PFLP, the IRA and every other half-articulate terrorist organisation on Earth. Futile to argue that we were a democracy and Hitler a tyrant. Means besmirch ends. SOE besmirched Britain.
Such evaluations, which are not unusual in British historiography, contrary to what some might expect, stand opposed to the Machiavellian (and frequently misinterpreted) maxim of ‘The end justifies the means’.
A fundamental requirement for SOE agents was an intimate knowledge of the language and customs of the country in which they were destined to operate, even better if they were of dual nationality – although this could prove to be a mixed blessing where the counterintelligence services were particularly thorough and efficient, as in Italy.
This holds true, since ‘blind’ missions (i.e. those without a reception party at the point of entry) were not uncommon, and led to the recruitment not only of numerous exiles, but also of deserters.
SOE’s internal organization was based upon the countries it was
involved in. The size and subdivision of individual departments was proportional to the amount of operations in each country. France, for example, was the country with the largest number of sections (six). After France came Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy.
SOE headquarters, after some provisional moves, was established on 31 October 1940 at 64 Baker Street, London, where officially they occupied the offices of the phantom organization ISRB (Inter-Services Research Bureau); after a few months in which the organization grew, it came to occupy a good number of the buildings on the west side of this famous street, as well as in the surrounding area.
SOE had numerous branches and training centres within and outside of London, with the degree of cover relating to the secrecy of their function. In addition to creating a full spectrum of false documents, ration cards, clothes and outfits, SOE developed and tested cutting-edge technology, weapons and special devices. With regard to its foreign branches, the famous (or infamous, on account of various fiascos and its erratic management) Cairo station initially coordinated operations in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Balkans.
In the closing weeks of 1942, the famous base codenamed Massingham (Inter-Services Signals Unit 6, or ISSU 6) came into operation near Algiers. This station played a key role in the secret operations that took place in Italy and the Mediterranean in the period that followed, as we will shortly see.
After the Italian surrender in 1943, numerous bases were established in Apulia, specifically intended to support the missions executed in German-occupied central-northern Italy, as well as those in Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. As the front line pushed northwards, in February 1945 almost all activities were transferred to Siena. Other wartime stations were established in India, Ceylon, Singapore and New York.9
An Englishman Abroad Page 3